Continuing cinema's perennial fascination with Shakespeare, a new adaptation of Macbeth is in the works, according to Variety.

Following versions from such film-makers as Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, the latest adaptation will star Sean Bean as the power-hungry Thane of Cawdor, and Tilda Swinton as his even more ruthlessly ambitious wife.

John Maybury (Love is the Devil) will direct from a script by Vincent Regan, which - suggesting there will be some departures from the original script - is entitled Come Like Shadows. In a statement that may cause some alarm to Shakespeareans, the producers promise a movie that's "user-friendly to a contemporary audience".

Steven Soderbergh will be involved as an executive producer of the independently-financed project from Milk & One Sugar.

Bean, who is currently filming a remake of the Rutger Hauer chiller The Hitcher and was recently seen in Silent Hill and Flightplan, has played the murderous monarch before, in a West End production three years ago. Tilda Swinton, too, has form for ruthless ruler roles (see her recent outing as the White Queen in The Chronicles of Narnia).